wildfires are threatening early, as california faces one of the driest years on record. a look at what may be the start of a hot, fiery season. the world's largest laser at lawrence livermore lab still hasn't reached its goal of creating a fusion reaction, now after billions of dollars and missed deadlines, the program is making changes. and what's in your next meal? we examine the pros and cons of genetically engineered foods. >> with genetic engineering, it's just moving very small parts of that genetic information, and pulling it out of the very precise way, and pasting it back into another plant. an interview with ted gray of comcast sports net about the

evolving climate for gay athletes, coming up next. good evening. i'm scott schafer. welcome to "this week in northern california." joining us tonight are amy standit, and paul rogers for the san jose americay news. this week, the final snow pack measurement in the sierra confirmed what we already knew. this has been a very dry year. paul rogers, it's also been a week where we've seenen early start to the fire season, from

sonoma, to southern california. i assume those things are related. >> they are, indeed. we've got a lot of dry vegetation out there right now. the snow pack on may 1st was 17% of normal. for this time of year, that's the lowest that it's been since 1977. and as a result, we're seeing conditions all over the state that are more similar to conditions that we see later in the summer. usually august type conditions. so we've got five or six pretty good size wildfires burning in california right now. the biggest is in ventura county near camario. luckily it hasn't really burned down many homes. i think it damaged 15 homes. but there's 1,000 firefighters down there. it's very windy. they only have it 20% contained. a lot of fire scientists are saying we're going to see a long, hot summer with a lot of fires. >> yet, as a season, not a year,

the year beginning in january, but as a season, it wasn't particularly dry, right? it just came early. >> this is one of the most bizarre winters that any hydrologists have ever seen in california. consider this, from january 1st to april, end of april, was the least amount of rainfall recorded in san francisco, back to 1849. which is the longest climate record of any city in california. it's the driest since we began records. and also, as i said, the snow pack is only 17% of normal. it has not rained or snowed hardly anywhere in the state. but in november and december, it rained and snowed at twice the normal rate. so we built up a lot of water in the bank. as a result, no one's calling it a drought yet. there are no water restrictions. the three major water districts in the bay area, none of them have summer restrictions.

and, you know, most of the large reserve voice in the state are at 95% to 100% of their normal capacity right now. so what it means is, there's plenty of water for this summer. we're okay. but in terms of fire, everything's really dry. >> and is the state preparing in some particular way for this dry season, saying this could be a very hot fiery year? >> you know, they've opened fire stations earlier, and assigned more people, and that kind of thing. they're expecting it. a lot of fire seasons, it's partially dependent on the climate. it's also partially dependent on luck. you know, some of the bad years we've had a lot of dry lightning strikes, where people throw a cigarette out at the wrong time. if we keep our fingers crossed, maybe we'll have a normal year. >> there are changes in how fires are fought in the state. we've dropped from four

firefighters per tract. >> governor schwarzenegger beefed up a lot of the state's firefighting capacity when he first came in. a lot of that has been cut back with the huge budget deficits that the state ran. the biggest political thing with fire in california right now is this fire fee. jerry brown signed a bill in 2011 that charged every rural homeowner $150 a year to pay for more firefighting equipment. a lot of the rural homeowners are not particularly excited about paying more taxes. they have fought it. and the howard jarvis and california taxpayers association have really opposed it, and they're filing lawsuits. that may be overturned. >> paul, is there a dispute about whether or not this is due to climate clang? is this another example of climate change? >> that's a really good question. i don't think scientists are willing to say that this year's very dry spring is a direct result of climate change. but these are the kind of conditions that we're going to be seeing a lot more of, more

frequently. what's caused this meteorologically is there's been a high pressure zone that built up over the west coast starting basically after new year's, and it acts like a wall. all the storms that would normally come in and soak california from alaska and the pacific, they're hitting this wall. they're going up into canada and then dropping down into colorado and the midwest. i was in colorado last weekend. it snowed last weekend in colorado. the rivers in the midwest are all 59 flood stage. they have been getting our rain. and in terms of climate, already we're seeing, you know, the ten hottest years ever recorded in the world back to 1880, have all occurred in the last 15 years. wildfires, the numbers overall in the west are going up. glaciers are melting. we've just passed 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is the highest level in 4 million years. climate change is real. it's baked in, and we have to deal with it. but we're not quite willing to say year-to-year is a direct result. >> this could be the new normal?

>> could be. but fingers crossed. >> hope for fewer lightning strikes? >> and don't throw cigarettes out the window, not this year. >> paul, thanks very much. a very different kind of heat is generated at lawrence livermore national lab, home to the largest laser. scientists have been trying to create a fusion reaction in the lab in hopes of developing a nearly unlimited supply of clean energy. but after 14 years, and over $5 billion, there's a shakeup in the management. amy, let me ask you, why is what they're trying to do there so hard to achieve? >> nuclear fusion, which is what they're trying to do, is one of the sort of holy grails of science. it's something generations of physicists have tried and failed to do. from a science perspective, this is an incredibly cool operation. they are directing 192 lasers. collectively, this is the world's largest laser, at a

single capsule the size of one peppercorn. i love that. the idea is that if you can do this right, for one fraction of a second, you would create such heat and such pressure on this capsule, that hydrogen, a capsule full of hydrogen, the hydrogen atoms would fuse together. this is nuclear fusion. not to be confused with nuclear fish shon that happens at power plants every day. this is a difficult thing to do. >> what makes it so difficult? >> the hardest thing is getting perfect symmetry. what they want is for this capsule, this tiny, tiny thing, to shrink from 1/60th of its size. that's if you took a basketball and shrunk it to the size of a single pea. but you need all the lasers to hit it at exactly the same power, right? what keeps happening, instead of this sort of symmetrical collapse, imagine somebody grabbing a water balloon, you get this lopsided thing. and that is not -- inside there

is not quite enough energy, not quite enough heat to force those atoms to fuse. >> somebody screwed up in management? when they don't meet their goal, somebody's head has to roll? >> what they're saying is with the management there, they're saying they planned this all along, this is a transition of power that has always been in the works. ed moses, who for seven years was the director of this operation, is -- half of his job description he still has. he's running the science part of the operation. so they're certainly not calling it a shakeup. but certainly there's been a lot of pressure, and a lot of blowback as a result of not meeting their goal. they said they would have achieved this by september 2012. that deadline came and went and there are some angry people in washington, frankly. >> they spent $5 billion telling us they were going to create a new clean source of energy, unlike nuclear fission. it didn't work. so what are they going to do

with $5 million worth of gear sitting over there in the east bay, instead of trying to find a new clean energy source? >> to back up a little bit, so i can explain the clean energy part. that single moment, you would be creating more energy than you put into it. and that is the promise of fusion as an energy source. in theory, if you could scale this thing up, you would have power plants that could produce endless energy, and runs on water, clean energy, no nuclear waste. this is sort of the holy grail thing there. but in a way, that has never been the goal. it's run by the national nuclear security administration, because it is considered a way to test our nuclear weapons arsenal without actually exploding bombs. we have the comprehensive test ban treaty. so the question is, how do we know our arsenal still works. so it's supposed to be a way to test that. >> we're not the only ones in the fusion game.

china's into it, the european union. so are we losing the race? are they doing a better job? are they closer than we are? >> their projects are not as far along as ours is. they're using different technology. the project out in france uses magnets rather than lasers to, again, create this fusion of atoms. you know, some people are now saying the lasers don't work, the magnets were a better idea, but it's too soon to say. >> so in the end we're going to use this gear more toward making sure our nuclear arsenal works and less toward the fusion energy. are they going to do any energy fusion energy research there? >> they'll still do some of their research, but they're dialing that back. as a reporter, what's been interesting watching this is, this was always billed as sort of a clean energy project. that was the first thing you heard when you went down there, this is about clean energy. now it's, well, that was sort of in the background. this was about our stockpile stewardship.

so that part of the science will still be moving along. we're seeing this basic science project. >> let's not forget that the star trek sequel -- >> it will be filmed there. your taxpayers at work. >> there we go. all right. amy, thanks so much. a different kind of science story now. california senator barbara boxer was in emoryville yesterday. something for new legislation. she wants the fda to require that genetically engineered foods be labeled. >> it's pretty simple. we deserve the right to know what's in the foods that we eat. and parents certainly have a right to know what they're feeding their children. because their children are the most vulnerable. >> but what exactly are genetically engineered crops? and what are some of the pros and cons? senior editor henry kissic narrates this report. >> voting yes on proposition 37?

>> reporter: despite defeat of proposition 37, a majority of bay area voters supported the measure and many are still leading the charge. west marine organic dairy farmer albert strauss was a spokesperson for prop 37, and he supports a similar initiative that washington state will vote on this november. >> there are solutions out there that don't need genetic modification. i don't feel it's natural. i don't feel we know enough about it. and i'm basically against it. >> reporter: but as the political battles continue, biologists are using genetic engineering as one more tool to improve crops. engineering allows them to change crops in more precise ways than conventional plant breeding. >> it basically involves taking the female eggs from one plant and bringing them together with the male parts of another plant. and then all that genetic information gets mixed up.

with genetic engineering, it's just moving very small parts of that genetic information, and pulling it out in a very precise way, and then pasting it back into another plant. >> reporter: at the university of california berkeley, biologist peggy lamow is genetically engineering a cereal called sorghum. 3 million people in africa eat sorghum porridge every day, and often little else. >> what you want to do is make whatever they eat, sorghum in this case, a complete nutritional package. >> reporter: but sorghum is difficult to digest. so with initial funding from the bill in the melinda gates foundation, they're tweaking the seeds so it produces 20 times more of a protein that makes the plant more digestible. >> when we're ready to genetically engineer sorghum, we will open up the seed, and we will pluck out that very tiny little immature embryo. >> reporter: a member of her

team mixes a group of embryos with a liquid containing a type of soil bacterium that transports the tweaked sorghum gene into the embryo. the process is similar for other crops. >> over a period of time, you select only those cells that got that genetic information, and it grows up as an amorphoused mass. it sort of looks like a bunch of grits on a plate. and then miraculously, using plant har moneys, you can cue that mass of cells to say, remember you're a plant. and it goes, oh, yeah. it grows up. and every cell in that plant now will have that piece of genetic information that you put into it. >> reporter: in the mid-1990s, the missouri based seed company monsanto was the first to sell genetically engineered seeds. monsanto genetically engineered one crop to fend off pests. they engineered another crop

that could resist their roundup herb a side. the idea was to kill the weeds but not the crops when roundup was sprayed. with these new roundup-ready soybeans and other crops, farmers could more easily use roundup herbicide which was cheaper and more toxic than other herbicides. today, about 90% of the sugar beets, cotton, corn and soybeans grown in the united states are genetically engineered. but organic farmers who use no synthetic pesticides oppose genetically engineered crops. >> pesticides, herbicides, are not sustainable. they're not healthy for land, and they're not healthy for people, and cows. >> reporter: organic farmers like strauss don't use genetically engineered seeds or ingredients. so if you're not buying organic, what genetically engineered foods might you find at the supermarket? some soybeans, corn and sugar

beets end up in snack foods, soda and cereals. a little yellow crook neck squawk and zucchini, some varieties of hawaiian papayas and some sweet corn. 20 years ago, scientists also engineered a tomato, this time to satisfy the consumer's palate. the goal was a tasty tomato that would remain firm for transportation. >> so if they would stay firmer on the vine, then you could let them start to ripen on their own and they would start to get all the tomato flavors that you would get in your backyard. >> reporter: the tomato was labeled, and popular. but it wouldn't stay firm on the vine. and the venture was short-lived. the tomato was important, because it was the first genetically engineered food to be taken to the fda for approval. >> what the company wanted to

show is the tomato is safe. that was the bottom line. oftentimes using this technology, a dozen genes, or half a dozen genes will be inserted at various places in the tomato genome, or any plant genome. so the potential there was that the gene could land in a tomato gene, and disrupt it, thereby mutating it. >> reporter: genetic alterations could lead to a spike in unwanted plant chemicals that could cause health problems. so biologists look in each plant to see if any genes were disrupted. >> if anything looks odd or different, or looks like it might have an issue, then we don't use those plants. so we choose those that we're confident they're not going to cause changes to the food quality or food safety. >> reporter: she writes and gives talks for the university of california. she doesn't take any money from biotech companies for this outreach work. >> i have personally gone

through the safety studies that are available to look at. on the crops that are out there now. and my conclusion was, from looking at those, that i did not see any indication that there were health safety issues associated in a specific way with any genetically engineered food or crop out there now. >> reporter: the world health organization and the u.s. national academies have stated that the genetically engineered foods available today are safe to eat. despite assurances, activists are pushing for labeling laws at state legislatures and ballot boxes. retailers like whole foods say they plan to start labeling the foods. monsanto has signaled it may be willing to talk about a labeling standard. >> i think it's in the best interest of the industry itself actually to label. if you have nothing to hide, go ahead and label. people want to know. go ahead and tell them.

>> next week, a half hour documentary dives deeper into the topic. wednesday, may 8th at 7:30, right here on kqed 9. nba player and former stanford basketball star jason collins shook up the sports world this week when he came out as gay. many hailed him as the first active pro player to do so. the distinction may belong to glen burke from berkeley. he went on to play for the los angeles dodgers and oakland a's in the 1970s. but his open sexual orientation may have derailed his major league baseball career. earlier i talked with ted griggs from comcast sports net bay area about glen's story. >> thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> glen burke was arguably the first openly gay player on a major league team. and i'm wondering when you compare his life and times with what jason collins went through

this week, and we'll see what he goes through in here on out, what do you see when you compare those two things? >> i think it's completely different. i think one of the great things about america, actually, is, we don't notice change. it's either like erosion or your hair growing or something like that. but glen was playing in a time in the '70s where we thought we were open, and it was peaceful, love and freedom, but there was a lot of closed minds and closed ideas, and ideals back then. so i think for him, while he was accepted by his teammates, which is sort of a precursor to what we're seeing with jason collins, i think the public in general, the old guard of baseball, baseball and basketball are two completely different sports, in terms of acceptance. in terms of the team concept. i think they're very different. >> why do you say that? >> baseball, it's a game of 25 guys. it's a game of sacrifice. it's a game where one person

doesn't necessarily make a huge difference. basketball, you, me and two other guys and shaquille o'neal could make the final eight in the ncaa tournament. one person makes such a big difference in basketball. >> why does that make a difference for someone coming out? >> i think ultimately, and we'll talk about it a little later, if you can play, you can play. and in basketball, more than anything else, if you can play, you can make a real difference, not just to wins and losses, but to people's pocketbooks. >> coming back to glen burke, he was a good player. might have been a really good player. but he didn't exactly come out. but people knew he was gay. he didn't try to hide it. how did that affect his career with the dodgers? >> i think on one hand, it didn't affect him as much as we'd all think, with his teammates. most of his teammates knew that he was gay. most of his teammates accepted him for what he was, and actually loved him. and our documentary, they talk

about guys crying at their lockers when glen was traded. >> he was a big personality. >> big personality. a real team guy that brought everybody together. and they respected him. so i think that that was one part of the equation. then you had the front office, who later got into a lot of trouble on "nightline." >> for racial comments. >> for racial comments. and tommy la sorta, who was struggling with his own son's sexuality, who was also a friend of glen burke's. and that was an issue as well. which led to glen's demise. >> let's watch a short clip and then we'll come back and talk. >> glen burke playing center field tonight, first world series appearance. ball one. >> he was blackballed out of the game because of his sexual preference. >> everyone's career ends, but to do it because you don't feel like you belong there, when you've proven that you do, is

damaging. >> here's a guy who was fighting not just the opposing pitcher trying to get him out, he was fighting the unknown. >> and ted, of course, glen burke died tragically at the age of 42. he was broke. he was addicted to drugs. died of hiv/aids. is jason collins going to have a different end to his story? of course, we don't know. but certainly a different reception of his coming out. >> the last line there is really poignant, because glen fought a lot of demons. and we don't know whether those demons were the same demons that any person would battle. but we know that his sexuality and being comfortable, and being able to talk about how he was, was one of those demons. and i think that if you read what jason collins wrote about the tremendous weight, and the ability to be yourself, and be open, that is a significant

thing that i think gay people are looking for when they come out. and i think glen never had that, what we would call peace. >> do you think the treatment and his life and how tragically it ended, do you think that has in some way motivated sports to get a do-over, now with jason collins? he's certainly not the last. >> it makes the door a little more open. maybe puts some oil in the hinges for the next guy. >> teams are doing things proactively as well, the you can play project. >> it started with the nhl, with brian burke and his son patrick, and their -- brian burke from the maple leafs. his son brendon was an openly gay hockey player. and brian, after his son brendon passed away from a car accident, started this you can play thing. and the nhl really embraced it. and all the top players in the nhl, the stars came out with this video, which said

basically, if you can play, you can play with me. you can be my teammate. now you see more and more teams doing that. we're starting a project here in the bay area with all of the major sports teams talking about -- and most of the big namath leets on those teams saying, hey, if you can play, you can be my teammate. and i think that's going to go a long way. because i think sports, for the most part, has helped society in terms of racial equality in terms of acceptance. ultimately when you look back over time, and you compare glen burke to a jason collins, you'll say, wow, we came a long way. we didn't come fast enough, but at least we got there. and i think that's great. >> ted, thanks for coming in. >> thank you, scott. if you'd like more information about the "you can play" project, we'll have links on our website. the weekend is here. thanks so much for coming in. we appreciate it. and that is all for tonight. i'm scott schafer.

thanks so much for watching. good night.

halford: talk about soho prices. £4.50 for a cheese toasty. standing: it's a panini. it's a ripip-off. oh, hey, did i tell you? mark's got engaged. congratulations. he's bringing theresa, that's his fiancee, around for sunday lunch next week. you'll be a nervous wreck then. why? he's not the one marrying her, is he? and this cheese smells. it's supposed to. it's gorgonzola. no, but he's welcoming her to the family. it's a very delicate thing. actually, i've thought of a really nice way to do it. good for you. pullman: this is the scene of the crime. halford: look at the state of this place. standing: yeah, well, it's not finished yet. now in 1987, stuart sharpe was killed whilst working late at his brother's photographic studio. that's what i'm making for her-- a photo montage for her computer.